Friday, April 17, 2009

Hurt feelings

I have received an email from Lee, M0LMP, complaining about my post "More bad manners." Lee accuses me of showing "contempt and disdain" for the Adventure Radio Forum, and of "having a pop" at a group of people who have done "everything possible" to help me launch the Wainwrights On The Air Scheme.

I wish to place on record that I have no argument at all with the Adventure Radio Forum. Through that forum I was able to have much useful discussion that helped me to formulate the WOTA scheme. I felt, and still do, that WOTA is part of "adventure radio" and that it is a legitimate topic of discussion in the forum.

What I objected to was the setting up, without prior permission or consultation, of a set of bulletin boards specifically for WOTA that mirrored those I had already created on the WOTA site. I felt that this would confuse WOTA participants, and feared that the reason for creating them without asking me first was an attempt to steal the discussion traffic from my WOTA site.

I am happy that the person who created them removed them as soon as I had made him aware of my opinion, and I have no ongoing argument with that individual. I am also willing to accept that, however it may have seemed at the time, there was really no ulterior motive for setting up those discussion boards on the AW site. Unfortunately, Lee offered no apology on behalf of his team member while dragging this week-old topic up. Instead, he chose to excuse him for being "new and inexperienced" and then request that I remove the "More bad manners" post.

Given that a major topic of discussion on the Adventure Radio Forum is criticism of the Summits On The Air management team for taking decisions without consulting the members, I find it more than a little ironic that Lee wants to stir up an argument over a matter that only occurred in the first place because one of his team members similarly acted without consultation.

Unfortunately, I find that Lee's email is as lacking in diplomacy as his team member initially was in setting up the boards without asking for permission in the first place, so I will not be agreeing to his request to remove my post. If that means that WOTA can no longer be part of Adventure Radio, so be it.